Why read The Evil Necessity?

Book cover of The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Book description

A fundamental component of Britain's early success, naval impressment not only kept the Royal Navy afloat-it helped to make an empire. In total numbers, impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced labourers in the eighteenth century.

In The Evil Necessity, Denver Brunsman describes…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Evil Necessity as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Thomas M. Truxes

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In total numbers, impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced laborers in the eighteenth century. In The Evil Necessity, Denver Brunsman describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Forced service robbed approximately 250,000 mariners of their livelihoods, and, not infrequently, their lives, while also devastating Atlantic seaport communities and the loved ones left behind. Press gangs, consisting of a navy officer backed by sailors and occasionally local toughs, often used violence or the threat of violence to supply the manpower necessary to maintain British naval supremacy.…

From Thomas' list on 18th century mariners.